Perils of a Southern Gothic Childhood

by Sue Scalf

 

Sometimes I wish I could leave
this quaking world and return
to that sweet time, but I recall
that nothing was safe--
insecurity lurked in the spidery pantry;
anger slammed the icebox door.
Mostly ignored, I listened.

Dinner times, having played too hard,
I sat exhausted,
the house hot with cooking,
nothing on the table a child would want--
runny greens, slick okra--
served up with stories of how people died.
Seeing Uncle Jesse lining up his peas,
Aunt Effie sopping up pot liquor,
I pushed the potatoes into pyramids,
played with my iced tea, drinking it
with the spoon jabbed near my eye,
and listened to how someone fell
from a casket at a cemetery
and how they found him alive.

At night on the fern-filled porch,
folks rocked until the house cooled,
told scary tales of hants and prowlers.
The creaking, cooling house
dragged chains across my dreams.
At last Sunday came with hope and rain,
but a hell-fire sermon made me nervous.

I sang until my throat ached.
Then home to a crowded table
where grown-ups discussed sin,
named names.
Searching for the pulley bone,
I never missed a word,
until I remembered
the flopping death of the hen
now greasy on the platter.

Years later, troubled by strange fears,
strange dreams, exhausted from insomnia,
I recall only those I loved,
dim faces on a porch,
voices at church,
and faces in a circle
around a dining room table.
The bed quakes under me,
and sleep is an open grave.

 

© 2005 Sue Scalf
originally published in Elk River Review

Sue Scalf is a native of Kentucky, but now lives in Alabama where she taught English and creative writing at Troy State University until her retirement. She has won over one hundred prizes for her poetry, including six Hackney awards. Two of her books have been nominated for Pulitzer Prizes. Her latest book of poetry, What the Moon Knows, was named Book of the Year by the Alabama State Poetry Society.